Earlier today it was revealed that the head of Cambridge Analytica, the firm used by the Donald Trump campaign for voter data analysis, had reached out to WikiLeaks cyberterrorist and Russian puppet Julian Assange during the election in an attempt at conspiring to steal Hillary Clinton’s emails. This is a smoking gun confirming that the Trump campaign was indeed trying to work with Russian hackers to sabotage the election in Trump’s favor. Now, in a panicked defensive display, Trump is throwing people under the bus.

This morning’s revelation from the Daily Beast is astounding. It finally confirms what has long been widely suspected about Cambridge Analytica: rather than being magically talented at collecting and analyzing voter data, it was willing to work with thieves and thugs in the name of cheating its way to success (link). In response, Trump’s people released a statement distancing the Trump campaign from Cambridge Analytica.

Trump and his campaign are now suddenly claiming that the Republican National Committee handled its voter data analysis, and “any claims that voter data from any other source played a key role in the victory are false.” (link). This statement, of course, is a joke. Cambridge Analytica ran the Trump campaign’s voter data analysis operation from top to bottom. It operated out of the Trump campaign’s own offices. It was previously run by Steve Bannon, who then took over the Trump campaign. The company is funded by the Mercers, the same father and daughter billionaire team who largely funded the entire Trump campaign. Jared Kushner even insisted during a Forbes interview this summer that Cambridge Analytica got Trump elected.

Yet now that Cambridge Analytica has been caught red handed, Donald Trump is suddenly insisting that the company had nothing to do with his campaign. This is similar to when former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was caught red handed taking Kremlin money, and Trump responded by claiming that Manafort had never played a meaningful role in the campaign.